But...why? What about Free! was so captivating? The characters? The yaoibait? Or, perhaps, somehow, the sports?
The answer is I have no idea, because it is one of the most nothingburger shows I have ever watched.
First and foremost, this is a sports story that fails at being a sports story. The narrative of any good team sports story is about a team who wants to win and wants to compete, and in order to do that they all have to come together and learn to work together. You are invested in their sport because they are. You want to see them win because they want to win.
The boys in Free!...don't really care. They're very chill about the entire thing, and even say they don't care about winning. If you don't care, why should I care? At the end, they say "if we win this, we could have a shot at going to nationals!" but I have no reason to hope they win or hope they go to nationals because they don't even care. They care more about their asshole ex-friend.
Right, the characters. Here's the thing: in order for the aforementioned sports narrative to work, you need to focus on the team's dynamic and how it gets better as they support each other, because a team cannot win if they do not work together. As such, the characters and their relationships need a lot of focus.
Free! puts too much focus on the characters and their relationships. In fact, the swimming is hardly even relevant; it's just set dressing for these characters to angst about their old friendship. This show doesn't need to be about swimming. It could be about the goddamn newspaper club for all anyone cares. The swimming is probably just an excuse to get all of these boys shirtless.
Free! does not act like it wants to be a sports anime. It acts like it wants to be a slice of life that is forced to take time away from the hanging out so the characters can do a sport.
But I wouldn't mind so much if the characters and their relationships were rich and well developed. Instead, every single character has about one personality trait (chill, moody, cheerful, comically serious, insecure dickbag) and the way their personal struggles and relationship troubles is presented is so ridiculously melodramatic. They're acting like their old childhood friend not liking them anymore is the end of the world and it's an incredibly big deal, when literally all they need to do is get over themselves.
And then the singular character with a believable struggle (needing to work to improve and feeling left out because he's a newcomer) sacrifices what he was working for in favor of the violent-when-angry jerkwad who refuses to talk to his old friends for the sole reason of being insecure and owning the inferiority superiority complex. Get over it lol. It's really not that serious.
I don't even get the fanservice because all of the characters are remarkably plain-looking. They're so...normal. Just some guys.
Still, I'm being unfair. The show is competent in the story it's trying to tell, the animation is quite pretty, and it's entirely inoffensive. If you have ever wished that there was a CGDCT anime but about boys, this is the anime for you.
